The sky caught fire under a popsicle sun and I would kill to see that again. Its beauty bled overhead in dying orange. Somewhere below dusk's pastels I moved the way tired people move through a gummy day, sucking on self-pity like candy.

I forget that we're here to love like we're on fire. We're gonna cry and hurt and beg and laugh at ourselves and grab a coffee and keep on living.

Take as much as we can.

Jam our pockets at the buffet.

Stuff our hearts, and walk out with our lips stained and souls bulging. This is all we get.

I have done it the wrong way.

I have sat in a room with a desert of books, picking at left-over cigarette butts and hoping I could scrape together a drag.

I watched out the window as more than ten months went by, and like a dead person without a voice I watched the leaves and the snow and the spring. The days swirled slowly around outside, dragging shadows on the floor.

Mom and dad. They knocked and pushed notes under my door. They loved me but that's where I was, stuck until I wasn't stuck.

Today while the guy behind me coughed and I craved a light and sweet, I realized that although I was in line at the coffee counter, my wallet was at home.